What's the best online whiteboard for brainstorming sessions with distributed product and design teams?

For distributed product + design brainstorming, the best all-around choice is usually Miro.

Why Miro is a strong default

• Great for structured brainstorming: sticky notes, affinity mapping, voting, templates
• Good real-time collaboration: smooth for remote workshops with many people
• Product/design friendly: user story mapping, journey maps, wireframing, flowcharts
• Mature ecosystem: integrations with Jira, Slack, Figma, Notion, etc.
• Easy to scale: works for small brainstorms and larger cross-functional sessions

Best alternatives depending on your needs

• FigJam — best if your team already lives in Figma and you want a lighter, more design-native whiteboard
• Mural — strong for facilitated workshops and enterprise collaboration; similar to Miro, often preferred by facilitators
• Whimsical — best for clean, simple diagramming and lightweight brainstorming
• Microsoft Whiteboard — okay if you're deep in Microsoft 365, but less feature-rich for product/design workshops

Quick recommendation

• Most teams: Miro
• Design-heavy teams using Figma: FigJam
• Workshop-heavy enterprise teams: Mural

If you want, I can also give you a comparison table by features, pricing, and team size.